Rousing Humanity
by Larkawolfgirl
Summary: Mavis refuses to go to war with Zeref without at least first trying to convince him otherwise. She's watched him fleetingly throughout the years. She knows there's little left that might convince him. But there is one thing she hasn't tried. In her heart she has faith that Zeref is still the boy she fell in love with.
**AN:** This was inspired by Mavis' line at the end of chapter 478 about realizing how to stop Zeref as well as the reader comments about her using her loli body to do so. My original intention was to actually have this be the plan she thought of there, but it seemed to fit better at the beginning of the Alvarez Empire arc. *Don't read unless you have read about Natsu's attempt to kill Zeref yet!*

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own Fairy Tail or its characters.

Mavis hasn't been able relax since she heard of Zeref's plot. Was this really the same boy she met back in that forest? The same boy that cradled her tenderly as he pronounced his boundless love? This same boy has now decided to slaughter thousands by his own accord? No matter how much time has passed or what he has gone through, she refuses to believe that he has changed so drastically. Perhaps her presence, her pleading, can reach the heart that has since been frozen over.

She floats in through his open balcony window, and searches for his form. He sits on the floor beside his desk, which is filled with endless stacks of paper. He looks tired and weary, yet there is also a dangerous, uncaring aura around him. As soon as she alights on the titled floor, his head jerks up and stares straight at her.

"Mavis," he breathes, low and even, as if he has been expecting her.

"I want you to call off this war," she says without preamble.

He laughs humorlessly. "Now why would I do that?" He tilts his head, his eyes mocking.

"Because I beg you to."

He chuckles and shakes his head. "I thought a tactician would be smarter than this."

"Please, Zeref." Her voice is earnest, and his breath catches at his name.

Mavis still hasn't lost faith in him. She understands the curse, understands why it's the ultimate curse. It takes and takes from you until you've lost so much that you lose yourself. Until you lose your humanity. She's guessed—she's feared—that she was the final straw. Perhaps her death wasn't the last fragment to fall, but it had been the first domino to set the collapse in motion.

"Zeref," she says with the same innocent voice she used to use when she said his name all those years ago. She sees a spark—it is just a flicker, but it is there nonetheless—of the look he used to give her. And she knows that deep down, he really is still that same lonely boy she fell in love with. The lonely boy she had wanted to coddle with her gentle touch from their first greeting.

"Zeref," she repeats, crawling her way along the ground until she is snug between his legs. She marvels at the way she fits there, as if they are two pieces of a whole. Two sides to this curse, she scoffs.

She longs to touch him—has always longed to touch him, really—but she can't, and she stays just a few centimeters apart, worried that reminding him of her incorporeal form will break this spell.

Zeref watches her hesitantly, eyes flitting from her soft green eyes to the light pinkness of her lips. His eyes close, and he begins to lean forward. He leans, and keeps leaning, until he topples over. His body slides through her, and she shivers, feeling a tingling sensation ripple through her crystalized body. Perhaps it was their twin curses brushing against each other, or perhaps their love was strong enough to pass even the distance of death. But it doesn't matter which, because the spell has already ended.

She knows it has—that his eyes have reverted to that cold edge—even before she hears him cry out once, a fading man, before hunching over himself. She flickers in front of him in a flash. His head lifts only slightly.

"Zeref," she says again, this time haltingly with a heavy blanket of empathy.

He glares at her, rage the only emotion visible in his coal-black eyes. "Don't. I don't need you feeling sorry for me." His words cut into her like knifes. But she understands the underlying meaning.

It isn't that he doesn't want her sympathy—he doesn't feel he deserves it. To him it is so much worse what she has suffered. It isn't just her death, but the fact that it was inadvertently his fault that has killed the humanity inside him. This only stirs her sympathy further. Meeting him might have been what ripped her life apart, but she's bared with this for a mere 100 years, while he has had to live through this agony for _400_. Mavis can't even begin to image what this life has done to him emotionally. She wants to, though. She wants to know of every ache and hurt, however small, so that she can sooth them away. When she first realized that his death wish had evaporated, she was thrilled—thrilled that something in life had caused him to cling onto it—yet now she wishes that he still craved death. She wishes that he could die right now so that he might find relief from this awful curse, and so that she could wipe away every trouble that doesn't flow freely from his shoulders like rain with her towel of loving kindness.

He doesn't want to die—and he won't. Because he's lost all shreds of his humanity. Yet, she has seen that spark, that tiny flicker of passion still held deep in the recesses of his being. Perhaps she can bring it out. Use it to find him once again.

Again, she says his name, this time with an alluring tone that has never left her tongue, and it makes her feel like an adult for the first time in her existence.

He lifts his head, looking at her dazedly. He shifts back into a sitting position and says her name with question. She fingers the tie at the neck of her dress. It falls lose exposing a glimpse of her collarbone. His breath hitches, but he doesn't speak until her fingers have curled around the base of the dress, hitching it to her thighs.

"Mavis!" he cries as a plea, eyes now looking broken.

She ignores him, lifting the dress entirely off her being. She's left in a small, childish matching white bra-and-panty set. Briefly, she realizes how comical it is that she's a long-dead ghost wearing little-girl panties.

Zeref doesn't look disappointed or surprised in the slightest. His eyes roam her body, skirting along the curves where the material clings. She breathes a sigh of relief that he isn't offset by her appearance, still immature and plain.

"Mavis, what are you—"His question falls short when her hand enters her panties. She watches his eyes intently, wonders what he must be thinking. Her hand rests there for only a moment, unable to do anything, before she slips the material down. His eyes take her in before moving up to her breasts, still covered, as if willing the bra to vanish. Her small breasts suddenly feel stifled by the material, so she slips it off without hesitation.

"Zeref, I love you." Mavis says the words simply, though they are anything but. She's exposed to him in all senses now, and it makes her feel alive in ways she never did when inside her body.

The flicker is back now, enveloping all his features in a soft glow. She wonders if the light is the curse, amplified by his onset of emotion, or if it is just her perception of his emotions. It doesn't matter, the curse can't touch her, not like this, and she crinkles her eyes in an innocent gestures of so many years past.

Zeref is the one to approach on all-fours this time. He moves as if to push her back, and she "lets him," knocking herself backward so that she lies on the firm floor. Zeref hovers over her, eyes flitting from her encouraging eyes to the swell of her modest breasts to the curve of her young sex. The faintest trance of hair rests above her folds, and for the first time she truly laments the fact that her body was never able to mature fully.

"Zeref," she says, allowing full seduction to enter her voice. She wants him, she realizes; she wants him in ways she's never known and will never have.

His eyes bore into hers, speaking as much understanding as frustration. A hand moves downward, and he presses closer to her as his full weight shifts to the other arm still holding him up. She hears his zipper lowering, and her mind goes momentarily blank. What had she expected to happen? she wonders to herself, suddenly feeling naive.

There is the sound of shifting clothing, and she knows what's happening, though she's yet to look to confirm it. She listens to his breathing, which gradually becomes erratic, and watches as his body begins to sway back and forth with his movements. She almost looks, but part of her is scared—scared what seeing will do to her and what taking her eyes away from his will do to him. So, she continues to stare into his dark eyes steadfastly, willing his heart to open up to her.

Soon he's whispering her name disjointedly. Again and again he says it, and his eyes are clouding over, as if he might cry. She lifts her right hand and brushes it along his cheek. His eyes widen ever so slightly, which she assumes means that he can feel the tiny tickle as well. He cries out her name louder, sounding truly wretched.

"Shh," she coos as if to a baby.

His arm spasms, and he lets himself drop not on top of her, but with her. The ticklish feeling spreads throughout her being making her gasp. He lets out a sound that must have been his completion, but she barely pays it any attention through the tickling sensation and the tears she knows he's crying. His arm wraps around her form, and she sighs.

They lay like that for a long time, Zeref crying, and Mavis humming soothingly. Finally, he sits up, staring at her.

"You want me to call off the war?" he asks, voice drained.

"Yes."

"It's hard to remember why I wanted it in the first place."

This should make her happy, but she frowns at his forgetfulness. "Zeref, I miss you."

He lowers his head. "I miss you, too. Every second of every day."

This does make her happy. Not only his words but the fact that he's lowered his walls to her. "I want to be with you, Zeref."

The light around him glows purple. "That time has passed."

She shakes her head, unyielding. "We could be together, now and always."

"Here?" He laughs with contempt. "You want to stay here? With me?"

"No," she says measuredly, "I want you to join me."

His eyes meet hers wildly. "You—you want me to die?"

"Yes."

"That's insane!"

"No, it isn't. We could exist throughout time together. Perhaps, as spirits, we could even touch. Truly touch."

He is quite for a minute. "Even so, I cannot die. You know the conditions of this curse."

"I do," she answers solemnly. "But Natsu could. You've said yourself that he has the power."

"Yes," he says flatly, "he does have the power. However, that power will kill him."

"No!" Mavis gasps. She feels lost. To hell with this curse. She wishes it were material so that she could straggle it with her small hands. She wishes she could watch it burn for the suffering it has inflicted on the world.

"So you see," Zeref continues, "I am doomed to this life of solitude. Forever and always."

"No," she says, shaking her head, "you are never alone."

"Mavis…"

"I've always come to check on you, and I'll continue to do so. Don't you remember what I said before? I will never reject you. Do not give up. We shall find a way to break this damned curse. I'm sure of it. And we will do it _together_."

"Mavis." He begins to cry again, though only softly.

She reaches for his hand, pressing her fingers down just slightly into his hand. This is the only assurances she can give. She's out of ideas, but not out of hope. "I'm here," she says. "I'm here, and here I'll stay."


End file.
